Netanyahu Satisfied with US Trip

Prime Minister returns home feeling he has delivered the message he wanted to – especially to the US.

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Uzi Baruch, 02/10/13 10:47

PM Netanyahu at UN Assembly

Flash 90

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is returning to Israel from his US trip with a feeling of satisfaction, that he has succeeded in delivering to the world – and especially to the US – the message he wanted to deliver.

Netanyahu faced a difficult challenge after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's appearances there a few days earlier. US media played Rouhani's speech over and over again, and Rouhani himself was courted by all major television networks.

It appeared that the international community took Rouhani's placating message at face value and had begun pinning hopes on his promises. Faced with these difficult opening circumstances, Netanyahu successfully burst Rouhani's “peace balloon.”

Netanyahu reminded the UN member states: Rouhani stood at the helm of the Iranian Supreme Council for National Security between 1989 and 2005. During that time, Iranian agents murdered opposition leaders in a Berlin restaurant. They murdered 85 people in the Jewish community center at Buenos Aires. They killed 19 US soldiers when they blew up the Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia.

“Are we supposed to believe that Rouhani, Iran's national security adviser at the time, knew nothing of these attacks? Of course he knew,” stated Netanyahu.

Netanyahu also got to hold a lengthy meeting with US President Barack Obama on this visit. Despite Obama's preoccupation with domestic economic problems, Netanyahu felt that on the matter of Iran, Obama was attentive and that his words did not fall on deaf ears.

Obama is a man of compromise and mediation. Netanyahu is not. He sounded very decisive on the matter of Iran's nuclear armament.

“Rouhani can keep on dribbling the ball until he realizes there is an end to everything,” a diplomatic source said. “Rouhani is trying to pull us down to the last millimeter. But he will understand, soon, that this will not pay off.”

Netanyahu did not need gimmicks in his speech. “The gimmick is that there is no gimmick,” explained Minister Gilad Erdan in an interview with Arutz Sheva.

There is no need to be alarmed by the New York Times' aggressive op-ed against Netanyahu or by criticism coming from Israeli journalists who have a difficult time facing Netanyahu's success. In “the test of the result” – a phrase Netanyahu used, in Hebrew, when speaking to Obama – the prime minister got the job done.